You’re invited, please save the date and join us!
What: OmtbO Annual Meeting – Your voice for mountain biking on Oahu
When: June 2nd, 2016 7-8:30PM
Where: Makiki District park arts room (look for signs)
Why: Set the direction for OmtbO for the coming year
Program: Come and help elect your board, set up committees, have your voice heard, lead mountain biking into the next phase on Oahu

Conditions have been great and hopefully you’ve all gotten to enjoy some great riding.

Just wanted to give everyone the heads up that they will be repaving Sunset Hills sometime this week. We don’t know the exact schedule, but be prepared for limited parking, or even no parking at all.

As always, it’s best if you can park away from the neighborhood and pedal in. As things may be hectic during the repaving process, please be extra conscious of the Sunset Hill residents and make sure that you don’t accidentally block someone’s driveway.

Additions to the OmtbO Board Announced

We are very excited to announce a couple of additions to our board effective immediately. For the last few months we have been a couple members short of having a full 11 member board. Fortunately we have a very responsive mountain bike community and those vacancies are now filled. Please welcome Travis Counsell and Robert Myint to the OmtbO board of directors.

New Members
Travis Counsell – Travis was added to the board a couple months ago and after some soul searching decided to accept the nomination to the vice chair position where he will contribute to programming and events for OmtbO. Travis is a vibrant addition to the board and is already a fixture in the cycling community through his work with Hawaii Bicycle League.

Robert Myint – Robert needs little introduction to the mountain biking community on Oahu. One of the fittest, fastest, and funnest riders on Oahu, he brings years of organizing our community into rides and events focused on fun and camaraderie. We are excited that despite his hectic flight schedule for Hawaiian Airlines he will be touching ground with us as often as possible to help lead OmtbO into the future.

Saying Farewell
Ethan Cumming – A hearty aloha goes out to Ethan for being a driving force on the founding board of OmtbO. His professional development has taken he and his wife Pepper from us back to the mainland. But his time as the Vice Chair of the founding board was very effective in getting the organization up and running. Aloha til next time!

Ohana Trail Update

Thank you!
….for the positive feedback we have received on the construction of the Ohana trail. Every board member has been approached by someone in the community thanking them for the new trail and all the effort that has gone into it.

The Trail so far:
Good weather in the winter months and hard work made significant progress that saw about 80% of the trail completed. We had the privilege of working with some of the best trail builders in the industry. Unfortunately, their schedule did not allow them to finish. We are working hard to find someone who can complete the trail as soon as possible.

Trail work days:
Many thanks to the people that came out on their free time to put our new tools to use to help finish the trail. If you missed out, don’t fret, you’ll get to help out on the last section of trail. We will start up trail work days again once we are ready to complete building the last section. Please watch this page and our Facebook page for upcoming events.

How you can help:
1) Be supportive and ride the current trail.

2) Once the final phase of construction starts, don’t ride the new section of trail until it is officially open. You could be subject to fines from the DLNR, and riding unfinished trail damages it.

3) Join OmtbO! If you already joined thank you! Perhaps you can consider an annual gift to help us build more trail miles and tell your family and friends to do the same. More members show land managers that there is justification to legitimize using funds for trails.

4) Get involved! We have a great board, but like every organization we need new ideas, new viewpoints, and new passion. Please attend one of the board meetings to learn more about what we are working on. We would like to hold elections at the end of this year so the founding board can step back and see what the community wants to create with OmtbO and we need your voice to determine what that direction is. With a lot of hands we can pull a lot harder than we can with just a few ……It takes a village!

In Summary:
We are working on securing a builder to finish the trail. We will announce this just as soon as it happens.

Dave’s election to lead the Na Ala Hele Trail advisory council will be good for mountain biking and our relationship with the DLNR and the state of Hawaii. Forming strong relationships with all user groups will lead to better understanding of what trails are needed to satisfy all. This broad based collaborative council helps the state manage the lands we recreate on.

Please do not build other trails, especially ones connected with the Ohana trail. We ask you to respect our efforts to be a great user group by focusing on trails that we have permission to build. Anything else gives the State a bad impression of our organization and destroys the trust we are trying to create.

We hope this will help you better understand what is happening with the Ohana trail and thank you for your interest.

Hope you have all been enjoying some excellent riding as the days are getting longer and the trail conditions have been great!

Many of you have inquired about volunteering for trail maintenance work. Here is your opportunity to give back to the Pupukea Paumalu Forrest Reserve (aka Sunset Hills).

The North Shore Community Land Trust is having a community volunteer work day on Sunday May 17th. We will be meeting at 9 AM at the Boy Scout Camp at the top of Pupukea Road. We will be doing maintenance work on the jeep road that drops in from the Boy Scout Camp, starting at the top of Barbed Wire Trail and working our way down the jeep road to Lilikoi Junction. We will be clearing downed trees and clearing overgrown areas to ensure emergency vehicles have access to the area in the case of an emergency. We’ll have some tools available, but please feel free to bring handsaws, loppers, rakes or any other tools that you think would be useful.

We really could use your help. Your participation will be greatly appreciated.

We are planning to working from 9am to 2pm. You are more than welcome to leave earlier, if you need.

Be sure to wear closed toed shoes, gloves and your smile, And don’t forget to bring plenty of water.

Remember, we are meeting at the Boy Scout Camp at the top of Pupukea Road. We are NOT meeting at the Sunset Hills trail head.

Invasive Species Clinic postponed

Aloha All,
We are going to postpone the invasive species clinic for today. The rain gauges say that we got too much rain yesterday and last night to go out for a bike or a hike on the trails.
Mike is still going to do this clinic and we will plan it for when the IMBA trail builders arrive in a couple weeks. We’ll coordinate it with the volunteer orientation for those that want to work with the IMBA trail builders when they are building our new trail.

Aloha Fellow trail users,
Don’t forget this weekend is the Sustainable Trail Building weekend taught by the professionals from the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) and hosted by Oahu Mountain Bike Ohana (OmtbO) and the State of Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources.

On Saturday: Bring trail tools and work gloves if you have them
-9AM MORNING will be at Le Jardin Academy to see presentations about trail techniques and modern technology that goes into building trails that do not require constant work to upkeep. Come learn how to make water sheet off a trail and not run down it. Learn to armor a trail!

-1PM AFTERNOON will be an on-trail clinic and work session in the Olomana area to put what you learned in the morning to

On Sunday: Bring work gloves and your bike
-1PM Meeting at Pohakupu park, Kailua. The invasive species ride will point out the natives versus the invasive species that we have on Oahu. Learn the best way to eradicate the problem plants and help the native species thrive along our public trail systems.